The Time Lords send the Second Doctor and Jamie to Space Station Camera,
to put an end to temporal experiments being conducted by Dastari, an old
friend of the Doctor's. Dastari has genetically augmented a savage
Androgum named Chessene, who has forged an alliance with the Sontarans.
They kidnap the Doctor and take him to Seville, where they plan to
isolate the Rassilon Imprimature: the genetic code which allows Time
Lords to travel through the vortex. The Sixth Doctor and Peri rescue
Jamie and follow the others to Seville, in a race against time with the
Doctor's past and future at stake.

Production

After being virtually ignored in North America for many years, Doctor
Who had earned a growing cult appeal during the mid- to
late-Seventies. John Nathan-Turner was keenly aware of the programme's
transatlantic following, and after becoming Doctor Who's
producer, he made it a priority to investigate the possibility of
filming a serial in the United States. Despite the enormous costs
involved, he was optimistic that the BBC's North American distributor,
Lionheart, might be willing to invest in such a project. In particular,
a trip to Mardi Gras in March 1981 inspired Nathan-Turner to set a story
in New Orleans, Louisiana, and a script entitled “Way Down
Yonder” was commissioned from American writer Lesley Elizabeth
Thomas. However, “Way Down Yonder” was abandoned around the
end of 1981.

Instead, Doctor Who's first trip abroad under Nathan-Turner's
watch was to Amsterdam, for Season Twenty's Arc Of Infinity. The next year, Lanzarote
played host to Planet Of Fire. However,
Nathan-Turner had not abandoned his plans of taking Doctor Who
Stateside, and around the end of 1983, Lionheart gave Nathan-Turner a
verbal guarantee of the requisite funding.

Patrick Troughton had enjoyed making The Five Doctors, and readily agreed to another
multi-Doctor story

Meanwhile, after making the twentieth-anniversary special The Five Doctors in 1983, Nathan-Turner was
keen to record another multiple-Doctor story. Most notably, he hoped to
once again entice the Second Doctor, Patrick Troughton, back to
Doctor Who, and offered Troughton the opportunity at the Spirit
of Light Doctor Who convention in Chicago that November.
Troughton had very much enjoyed the experience of making The Five Doctors, and readily agreed to
Nathan-Turner's invitation.

Both Troughton and Nathan-Turner also hoped that Frazer Hines might
return to play the Second Doctor's companion, Jamie McCrimmon. Hines had
remained on Doctor Who for virtually all of Troughton's tenure,
and the two actors shared a tremendous camaraderie. Unfortunately,
commitments to the soap opera Emmerdale Farm had forced Hines to
limit his involvement in The Five Doctors
to just a brief cameo. Hines was planning to take an extended hiatus
from the show in 1984, however, opening a window for him to participate
fully in a Doctor Who serial alongside Troughton.

Given the pivotal nature of a story filmed in America, it was decided
that this would be the best showcase for the Sixth Doctor's first
encounter with one of his past selves. To write such a landmark
adventure, script editor Eric Saward encouraged Nathan-Turner to
approach Robert Holmes, who had just completed the Fifth Doctor's
swansong, The Caves Of Androzani. In
addition to the New Orleans setting and the presence of the Second
Doctor and Jamie, Nathan-Turner also asked Holmes to bring back the
Sontarans, the warlike clone race Holmes had created a decade earlier in
1974's The Time Warrior. Another serial
reviving the monsters, “The First Sontarans” by Andrew
Smith, was already in development, but this was shelved so that the
creatures could be available to Holmes.

Holmes agreed to try his hand at the proposed story, although he was
wary of the shopping list of ingredients he was being asked to include.
He disliked reusing old monsters, but felt that the Sontarans had been
poorly served in their appearances since The Time
Warrior (in 1975's The Sontaran
Experiment and 1978's The Invasion Of
Time, neither of which he had written himself) and saw this as
an opportunity to restore them to his original vision.

Holmes also felt that the New Orleans locale was a handicap, offering
little benefit to the adventure. However, he was determined to make
every possible use of the setting, and decided to pair the Sontarans
with a new race of aliens influenced by some essential facet of New
Orleans. He quickly rejected the notion of making these new creations
jazz connoisseurs, and instead decided to draw upon New Orleans'
reputation as a centre of culinary art to create the Kraalons, a race of
alien gourmands.

Robert Holmes drew upon New Orleans' reputation as a
centre of culinary art to create a race of alien gourmands

Encouraged by this notion, Holmes composed a storyline entitled
“The Kraalon Inheritance”. This ran to three forty-five
minute episodes, the longest story attempted since Nathan-Turner became
producer; the length was dictated by the need to make maximum use of the
overseas locale. The script for part one was commissioned on February
13th, 1984, with the remaining installments following on March 9th. The
plotline about isolating the Doctor's genetic ability to travel in time
was recycled from “The Six Doctors”, Holmes' abandoned
version of The Five Doctors.

As work on “The Kraalon Inheritance” progressed, trouble
began brewing. It became clear that Lionheart would not be able to cover
the cost of the expedition after all, and on February 15th,
Nathan-Turner wrote to BBC Enterprises, the commercial wing of the BBC,
in the hope that they would be interested in making up the shortfall.
Preparations continued unimpeded, however, and on February 29th,
Troughton and Hines were both contracted for Serial 6W. This would be
the third adventure made as part of Season Twenty-Two, although it would
ultimately change places in the broadcast schedule with The Mark Of The Rani and become the fourth
transmitted adventure. Holmes worked on his scripts for “The
Kraalon Inheritance” quickly, submitting drafts to the production
office by the end of March.

In April, however, disaster struck. The production office was informed
by the office of the Head of Drama that no money would be made available
for filming in New Orleans, forcing a wholesale change of plans. Working
quickly, Nathan-Turner suggested Venice as an alternative location, but
it was soon determined that the crush of tourists, plus the higher costs
to be incurred in Italy, would be prohibitive. Production associate Sue
Anstruther then proposed filming in Seville, Spain. It was found that
this was a feasible option, as long as the cast and crew voluntarily
accepted a cut in the normal rates for meals and lodgings.

In early May, Holmes reluctantly agreed to rewrite his scripts to
account for the new setting, although he was bitterly disappointed that
much of the humour he had devised -- often drawing upon the differences
between English and American language -- had to be discarded.
Fortunately, in many instances, the process of revision was made easier
because Seville offered an obvious alternative to Holmes' planned
locations: New Orleans' French Quarter became Seville's Arab Quarter, a
plantation house became the hacienda, the banks of the Mississippi
became an olive grove, and so forth.

Robert Holmes reluctantly agreed to rewrite his scripts to
account for the new Seville setting

Around this time, the Kraalons became known as the Androgums -- an
anagram of “gourmands” -- and the story was duly renamed
“The Androgum Inheritance”. (The title “The Kraglon
Inheritance” also appears on some paperwork, although it is likely
that this was merely a typographical error.) This did not remain the
case for long: it appears that several other titles, including
“Creation”, “Parallax” and “The Seventh
Augmentment”, were briefly considered. Finally, in mid-May, the
production team opted for the obvious candidate: The Two
Doctors.

The director assigned to Serial 6W was Peter Moffatt, who had last
handled the Sixth Doctor's introductory story, The
Twin Dilemma, at the end of the previous season. Moffatt
originally hoped to spend twelve days in Seville, followed by eight
studio days back in London (one two-day studio block and two three-day
sessions). These plans were eventually trimmed to eight days on
location, followed by six days (three two-day blocks) in the studio.

Cast and crew departed England for Spain on August 8th, with filming to
begin the following day. Problems plagued the trip right from the start,
when the case containing all the wigs and Androgum eyebrows went missing
en route. Make-up artist Catherine Davies was forced to hurriedly
replace the hairpieces with materials purchased in Seville. Extreme heat
(often approaching 40 degrees Celsius) and stomach ailments also
hampered the shoot. The principle location was a dilapidated hacienda
called Dehera Boyar, near Gerena. The scenes in and around the home of
Doña Arana, including the olive grove, were recorded there from
August 9th to 12th.

August 13th and 14th were spent at various locations in the Santa Cruz
district of Seville itself. Several members of the crew wound up on
camera in these sequences, including Moffatt and costume designer Jan
Wright, who appeared in the episode three footage of the Bar Hosteria
del Laurel. The woman who throws a flower to Dastari was Spanish
aristocrat Mercedes Carnegie, the wife of Donald Carnegie, Assistant at
the British Consul. Both Carnegies had been of great help to production
manager Gary Downie while scouting for locations.

Because of a scratch on a film negative, James Saxon and
Carmen Gomez had to be despatched back to Spain at great cost

By now, however, Nathan-Turner had been informed that there was a
scratch on one of the film negatives returned to the UK for processing.
Material recorded at Dehera Boyar, involving James Saxon (Oscar) and
Carmen Gomez (Anita) in the olive grove, would have to be remounted.
Unfortunately, Saxon and Gomez had already returned to England, and this
meant that they would have to be despatched back to Spain at great cost
to the production office. These sequences were rerecorded at Dehera
Boyar on August 16th. The same day, the scene of the Doctor fishing for
gumblejacks was recorded at nearby Rio Guadiamar, while the Doctor and
Shockeye hijacked a lorry on the road from Gerena to El Garrobo. Upon
his return to London the next day, Nathan-Turner was outraged to
discover that the reported scratch was virtually imperceptible, and the
remount had not been necessary after all.

The first studio session for The Two Doctors took place on August
30th and 31st in BBC Television Centre Studio 1. This block was chiefly
dedicated to scenes on Space Station Camera, with the set for Dastari's
study in use on both days. Corridor sequences were shot on the 30th,
followed by those in the kitchen, the computer room, and the torture
area on the 31st. In addition, material aboard the Sixth Doctor's TARDIS
was taped on the 30th, followed by the Second Doctor's TARDIS the next
day. For the latter, the TARDIS console was replaced by the older
version in use prior to The Five Doctors.
In post-production, the start of this scene was converted to monochrome
(before gradually transitioning to colour) in order to more faithfully
harken back to the Troughton era.

The remaining studio days, saw The Two Doctors move to TC6. The
focus for the next block, on September 13th and 14th, was the hacienda
cellar set, while material in the outbuilding and the passage was also
completed on the 14th. A third Doctor was present that evening, as Fifth
Doctor Peter Davison dropped by for a visit while filming L
Driver.

Production concluded on September 27th and 28th. The first day largely
dealt with scenes in the space station infrastructure, although material
in Oscar's restaurant was also taped. Finally, sequences on the main
floor of the hacienda were completed on the 28th. Unusually, recording
on this day finished well ahead of schedule, thanks in part to the fact
that Moffatt had filmed some of the scenes on location while waiting for
the replacement Androgum hairpieces to be readied.

Patrick Troughton expressed the desire to secretly return
to Doctor Who inside a monster costume, but
passed away in 1987

The Two Doctors was the final televised Doctor Who serial
for both Troughton and Hines. Although Troughton gleefully expressed the
desire to make a further “secret” appearance on the
programme inside a monster costume, this never transpired. He suffered a
fatal heart attack on March 28th, 1987, while attending a Doctor
Who convention in Columbus, Georgia. Hines, on the other hand, would
continue to narrate Doctor Who audios and contribute to DVD
releases, before reprising the role of Jamie for Big Finish
Productions.

The Two Doctors also marked Peter Moffatt's final contribution to
Doctor Who. He continued working in television thereafter,
directing episodes of programmes such as All Creatures Great And
Small and EastEnders. Moffatt died on October 21st, 2007.